Do you have any issues with the 333 rootstock? Some nurseries have stopped using it stating they are seeing issues with viability and other growing issues. I can’t seem to find out what they mean by those answers.
It lacks the vigor of callery but their are other alternatives which are among others ohxf87 and ohxf97 for European pears. 333 is working ok for me in general because getting fruit fast is always good but there is a cost. BET and Harbin rootstocks are fine for Asian pears but not necessarily the best choice unless your in the far north for European pears because of pear decline. I still think callery is the way to go Mike because you already have the rootstocks. They won’t be any harder to kill later than now but that’s just my 2 cents. Nurseries should hate 333 because it takes longer to get the same size tree so it costs them money. 5’ trees are worth more than 2’ trees. I’m ok with using whatever works and all rootstocks have a purpose. Rabbits don’t like callery much but 333 they love just like deer. The slower growth with the other problems turns lots of people off but they are great as a dwarf and FB resistant which quince is not. Some people have no fireblight problems so quince is better for them.
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333 is a dog for me on the two trees Ive had experience with it. One of them died first winter. Both 87 and 97 are better growers in my yard but you got to watch them, especially 97 to keep them in check. They want to grow tall quickly.
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Yes it’s like that you need to water it, fertilize it, mulch it and then callery will outperform it every time. The key is using the right rootstock for the right job. I like 333 but I’m not naive to its limitations. 87 and 97 is like callery for my purpose but costs more. I grow all of the aforementioned rootstocks besides quince and I grow at least a couple more. They are all ideal when you need them. Harbin is ideal in the north and you might think but it’s not dwarfing, it gets decline etc. but it really is the best. Bet is very likely the best Asian pear rootstock there is. The rest comes down to height, speed of growth, and disease resistance and take my word for it they all have advantages and limitations. Oxf rootstocks will sucker and are thorny just like callery given the right environment. BET can be invasive just like callery so it’s not a perfect world I just use what I know works to get fruit. Let’s face it many of the pears of old took 15 years to produce fruit and a few still do. Perry pear trees are real giants in Europe in many cases Perry Pears Cider. Check out the nearly 400 year old Endicott pear https://landscapenotes.com/2012/06/25/the-endicott-pear-americas-oldest-cultivated-tree/
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There is at least one variety of Seckel pear that can have large pears that I have done research on, regardless often bigger than regular seckel pears it’s called “Vermont Beauty” from grand isle Vermont
Vermont Beauty has strong, pleasant, and somewhat spicy flavor, almost as delicious, as mouthwatering, as appetizing, and as flavorful as a normal seckel pear. It’s pears are very bright, very sweet, very fine grained, melts in the mouth like butter if given a chance to fully ripen off the tree in cool enough weather. This variety of seckel pear has larger more attractive pears than the average seckel pear if they ripen in cool enough weather. It’s crop ripens a little later and keeps longer than the average seckel pear. Being from Grand Isle Vermont it’s clearly more cold hardy than the average seckel pear.
Production wise in numbers it does not fall much short of the average seckel pear, weight wise it’s crop is basically the same as that of the average seckel pear crop, that is due to the larger size of it’s pears making up for the smaller number of pears. The first seedling of Vermont Beauty was planted by Benjamin Macomber of Grand Isle, VT.
Fruit is small to medium in size, shape is that of the average European pear. Smooth skin is sharp lemon yellow with a slight greenish tone, has a bright deep rich red blush inclining to purple with pinkish-red dots that stand out a lot, very attractive, has a rich flavor, moderately juicy, nearly free of ugly markings. Firm but becoming somewhat buttery when fully ripe, can not be picked as unripe as a lot of other varieties can be.
Blooms as early as May 6
Harvests starts Sept or Oct
Merits: very hardy (to zone 3); naturally upright-spreading tree, tree is moderately vigorous and is sturdy.
Faults: fairly susceptible to scab and fireblight.
Note: UP Hedrick, in Pears of New York, thought it not improbable that Vermont Beauty was identical to Forelle (Trout) pear, but it has since been determined that they are not the same, it is an obviously distinct variety.
Supposed to have originated as a chance seedling in the nursery of Benjamin Macomber, Grand Isle, Vermont, about 1885
Vermont Beauty pear in Vermont are only good if September and October are cool enough. One of those unusually warm or hot Late summers early autumns by Vermont standards means lousy pears on the Vermont Beauty trees.
I am suspicious of the sensitivity to fireblight claim since it was used in Honeysweet hybrid to gain fireblight resistance.
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I’m aware of that pear it’s frequently confused for other varieties so I’m really glad you brought it up. Take a look at this old post about forelle and you will see it come up Anybody grow Forelle Pears?.
Seems like there has been a lot of discussion about growing pears on the forum in the last 6 months or so with you Clark being the ringleader. All the discussion has motivated me to add more pears to my young backyard orchard. This spring I am adding Seckel, Korean Giant, and Kosui on 87, Drippin Honey on 513, and Shinko on BET. Also bought some 333 rootstock for grafting. I have done quite a bit of reading on pear rootstock performance trying to figure out the optimum spacing for these new trees.
Seems like there is a lot of contridictory info on the suggested spacing of asian pears on 87 and 333 ranging from anywhere from 5’ to 12 to 15’. Some articles say 87 will ultimately be larger than 333, some say the opposite. I understand some of this variance may be due to variety, I have read Korean Giant will typically be a larger tree than other asians.
I would appreciate hearing others experiences on this pear spacing issue, trying to cram as many fruit trees as possible inside my new orchard fence but don’t want to later regret planting them too closely, thanks, Chris.
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Chris,
I can tell you in my experience Drippin’ honey’ gets 12-15’ on that rootstock and as wide as 2 doorways after many years of growing and no attempt to keep it smaller. Tried my best to get it a large as possible. Korean Giant grows quick and looks like it could be a large tree. Seckel has been a very slow grower for me so I would not expect it to be real vigorous. My soil has a natural dwarfing ability to it so the same may not be true for everyone. My mm111 apple rootstocks don’t grow any larger trees than 513 rootstock in my soil. 87 and 97 make larger tree rootstocks than 333 hands down. In my soil I have 333 flowering at 5-6’ so I’m suspecting 333 is really dwarfed in my heavy clary loam but time will tell. Everything prior to the last couple of years I grew on callery and really love that rootstock with the exception of Drippin’ honey. Asian pears produce pears fast and runt out the tree. BET and Harbins are monsterous trees but Asian pears will even runt them out eventually but they are very vigorous rootstocks! Wish I could be of more help on size but many of these rootstocks are new to me. I would Never put Asian pears on 333 rootstocks and other than that everything should be fine.
Thank you so much!! I really appreciate it! I’m excited and daunted but thankful for YouTube. We’ve been away all weekend w/o internet service and I’ve had pear trees on my mind the whole time lol! I took a pic tonight when we got back of one that’d be easiest for me to experiment with as it’s not in our “wild” area- we actually mow around it. It’s already leafing out although we have had odd weather and supposedly a big snowstorm tomorrow night! Anyway, this is what I’m hoping to work with:
Any suggestions? I need to wait until it goes dormant next winter? It may have so many “trunks” as seen in the second pic bc it was probably mowed/ brush hogged a while back and I think this is what they do- stubborn things lol!
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That tree will be perfect to experiment with.
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Great tree to graft. I would remove those low competing trunks. I would graft onto the limbs that already have wide angles and top graft it about 6’ high. With a few limb grafts and top grafting this tree could be fruiting in a short period of time.
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If you have scion wood available I would graft it now.
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Thanks, Auburn, I have loppers and a small hand saw… Should I just choose the largest main trunk and remove the rest? Thanks so much for the help! Any way to discourage those areas where I cut to keep from getting revenge on me by sprouting tenfold at those spots? 
Do I just keep cutting them back as hey show up? I might email my friend to see if she has pruned recently, and I don’t recall her pear varieties, but otherwise, I don’t have access to any scions. Maybe it’d still be good to prune the tree for when I find some, even if I have to wait until next winter?
That looks like a great tree to graft. Those above are experts and it probably would make the most sense to remove those smaller trunks, but another option -especially if you are doubtful of your grafting abilities- would be to do a graft (cleft I’d think) on all noth of those biggest trunks after you cut them off. Then you could graft some of those smaller limbs coming off the bottom. This also gives you the option of having more than one variety of pear growing off that same roo tstock.
AS for your question about stopping sprouts, I don’t think you can. And there will be lots of them. You need to just keep them cut back as your grafts take and start to grow. Eventually they should slow down.
From the look of that tree, if you don’t already have your scionwood it is likely too late (you have to collect it before it comes out of dormancy). But its possible there are still some fruiting pear trees in your area that are dormant. Different ones wake up at different times. If not, I may have some left I can send you. Good luck.
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Thanks for the advice!! Ok. I may be too late. I do have these pear seedlings that I bought from the VA Dept of Forestry spring of 2014 (accidentally “coppiced” by my sweet husband’s mowing spring of 2016!) which are still dormant so maybe there’s a chance of some scionwood available around here. These saplings are supposedly Bartlett but they’re thorny, almost as thorny as these callery pears so I don’t know what to make of them or if they’ll ever give good fruit. I hate the thorns 
.
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Just found this with a quick google. They say luscious and moonglow are fb resistant. Any thoughts? http://maplevalleyorchards.com/Pages/ScionWood.aspx
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Found another! Exciting! If any of these pear varieties seem most apt to bring success to a complete novice’s attempt, let me know!
http://www.masonvilleorchard.com/scionwood.htm
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ClothAnnie,
This post will be worth reading Pear tree Fireblight research so you dont have to.
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Looks like you are doing a lot of research, which is a good thing. To answer your question: yes, dormancy is important with the scionwood (the fruiting wood you want to graft ONTO your callery) but the rootstock (what you are grafting TOO- your callery pear in this case) should NOT be dormant. It should be about where yours looks to be, though warmer weather is preferred and probably should be waited for even if it means your callery will have leafed out a lot more).
To be clear, here is how it works: People usually collect their scion wood in late winter while it is fully dormant. Then they put in their fridge in baggies and damp paper (some do) and so on. Then they wait about 1-3 months until trees come out of dormancy and wake up and sprout leaves AND the temperature gets considerably warmer. (ideally, 70 degrees for 3 days). Then they take the still dormant scion wood out of fridge, graft it onto the non-dormant rootstok tree, and if all goes well by the time the scion wood wakes up and comes out of dormancy, the rootstock will have connected its cambium layer to that of the scion wood and in that way the rootstock can supply water and food to the scion and keep it alive until the two pieces can grow together better. (Cambium layer is the bright green layer just below the bark that is very thin. The goal of grafting is to connect both pieces cambium layers and let nature do the rest.
I hate to see you do all this work and use bartlett seedlings for your scion. Chances are you won’t end up with a tree much better than a plain callery. At least I think that is right, is it @clarkinks ?
If you haven’t found any scion wood soon, I will check and see if I have enough to send you some this year. There would be no charge if I have some. Next year you can find a tree in your area I’m sure. Good luck
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@thecityman,
I did not cut any scion wood this year accept from my small yellow pear and one stick of citron de Carmes. Maybe I will wind up with some extra scion wood from grafting this year and can donate some. We had little dormancy this year and it rushed me on everything. That Bartlett seedling is not what I would use. I think the pears would not be very good.